October 2026 (1) - Flipbook - Page 4
In the Spirit of the Times
Why Bother Shooting
in BPCR Ri昀氀e
Matches?
By Jonny V
I’ve met many people since I
became involved with BPCR
shooting. I do a lot of load
testing at my local range which
is Cascade Shooting Facilities
Range Master in Ravensdale
Washington. Normally I try to
do ladder testing and group
testing on Sunday mornings on
B range. Sunday mornings seem
to be the time when there’s the
least amount of pressure during
the average weekend.
The range is limited to 200
yards. As such, it’s not really a
complete test of a BPCR ri昀氀e
and load combo, but it’s an easy
and convenient way to weed out
loads that don’t work. If it won’t
shoot at 200 yards, things are
not gonna get better at longer
ranges. I tend to get there early,
usually by about 730 or so. Most
of the time I’m setting up my
target camera in my LabRadar
and getting everything situated just so. This way, once I can
start shooting at 9 AM sharp, I
get maximum value for my time.
It never fails that other shooters are immediately drawn to
the huge boom and the cloud of
white smoke. When I let go on
my 45–90 or 45–100. People
will immediately make their way
over and start ogling my ri昀氀es
4
and asking questions. I have met
many people this
way who actually
shoot black Powder. The thing is,
I’ve never seen
them at a match.
I’m fairly certain
that the number of
people shooting in
black powder ri昀氀e
matches is only a
small fraction of
the total number
of people shooting
black Powder. I
suppose somebody
at Bu昀昀alo Arms
could provide
insight on this. I
bet they sell a lot
of stu昀昀 to people
who never show up at a ri昀氀e
match. There’s probably thousands of names of people buying things that we as the match
shooting community have never
heard of.
He will typically sit and talk to
me for 10 or 15 minutes asking about all of the gear I have
and why I’m testing so much.
When I told them that I shoot
in long range matches, I often
times get a bunch of mixed
reactions. People will say that
they’ve thought about shooting
in a match. Most of the time,
they’ve heard of the Quigley
Match, but not many of the other matches. When I encourage
them to go and tell them what
a great time they’ll have there’s
usually a bunch of excuses.
People will tell me about how
they’re trapped at work or how
their wife wouldn’t understand
them being gone for a week at
a shooting match. One of the
things I hear on a somewhat
regular basis is that they want
to get good before they go to the
October, 2026, Issue #4
